# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S181
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Is This, Then, the Theology of the American Lutheran Church? 181

...has the Lord Christ not made the paralytic walk; for this healing he afterward used the words: "Arise, take up your bed, and go home" (v. 6); and in verse 5 the Lord Christ makes a distinction between the two works — the forgiveness of sins and the healing of sickness — the second of which he afterward, in verse 6, applies as proof that he has the first, namely the forgiveness of sins, in his power. Is, then, the remission of sins which Christ grants, and which he teaches the apostles to dispense, the very same thing as the healing of the sick? Where, besides, does it say the word which the described interpretation puts into the mouth of the Lord Christ: "your sins are forgiven you; sin no more, so that," and so forth? John 5:14 says: "See, you have been made well." ......... Scripture in Luke 10:16, Galatians 3:2, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1:5, and other passages interprets John 20:23 to mean that the Lord Christ declares the word of the Gospel — with which his disciples comfort the individual afflicted and sorrowful — and the word of the Law — with which they admonish the frivolous or hardened sinners — to be his own or God's Word, and also wills that his disciples' undertaking of admitting the penitent to the holy sacraments and withholding them from the impenitent be regarded as his own undertaking. The "List," to be sure, thinks that the penitent does not need the assurance of the forgiveness of sins because he already has it; the other essay wonders why anyone should think a person needs a repeated assurance of the Gospel; but not only the penitent — the Lord Christ himself knows better. Faith comes from preaching (Romans 10:17); therefore the penitent often goes to church and to the holy Supper; but the hardest thing about faith, the little word "for you," one learns best when it is spoken to one alone, and not only in public preaching; therefore the afflicted person seeks the preaching of the Gospel from his friend, his preacher, and so forth, and therefore the Lord Christ raises such preaching directed to the individual to the dignity of his own word. How often it is necessary to bring the Law to the individual frivolous or hardened person, or to retain his sin, the authors of the "List" and of the other essay surely know well enough. John 20:23, then, concerns, again, like Matthew 18:18, a particular case of pastoral care within the Christian congregation, and both scriptural words belong as individual members to the general rule of Luke 10:16, 2 Corinthians 5:20, and other passages — namely, that the preaching and administration of the sacraments of the Christian Church is the Lord Christ's own preaching and administration of the sacraments, both quite in general, and in its direction toward the individual, and finally also in the particular instances of church discipline. To be sure, the "List" and the other essay seek to invalidate this simple scriptural doctrine by both maintaining that Matthew 18:18 and John 20:28 refer only to the disciples. Yet the very author of the essay "Confession and Absolution" maintains this after having, shortly before, in the same essay, emphatically maintained that Matthew 18:18 refers to the church,